


What Dreams Foretell

by heartstone



Series: The One That Needed It Most [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Devotion, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Restoring Trust, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22908934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: Eregion had been a dream, but Celebrimbor held hope that it foretold a pleasant dawn, however rough the awakening.***Celebrimbor awaits Annatar's return.
Relationships: Annatar/Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon
Series: The One That Needed It Most [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646590
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	What Dreams Foretell

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the context in this work is better understood if you have read the previous work in the series, "When You Arise," but I think it can be understood for the most part on its own.

The water that filled the tub glistened faintly when the candlelight caught on its ripples, pale-shining mountain ranges whose short-lived peaks fell just as quickly as they rose. Tyelpë ran his hand along the swirling surface as if to smooth the tumult of the eons that passed those mountains by, shivering at the coolness as the collected rainwater lapped his fingers. The pattern of the waves as it broke around his half-submerged palm intrigued him: flowing passively along its course but never acquiescent to any barrier. Water was supple, never taking a single shape. Determined to follow through to its destination it would embrace anything that stood in its way and over the years, crumbling with the saturated intimacy of that embrace, those barriers would be worn down with its unfaltering patience. Perhaps that was why Ulmo’s domain remained the least corrupted on Arda.

Celebrimbor sighed, curling his fingers absentmindedly as he lost himself to the pattern of the invisible currents that shifted with his every movement. Ever he strove to be like the water, but it was fire he was most drawn to. Be it the green months of summer when the Daystar shone the brightest or the kindling of his forge-fires that could melt even the most stubborn of metal or. . . gold eyes, half-lidded, and the fall of copper silk across mussed linen. Yet how quickly those embers could turn to wroth! The memory of their argument earlier that day drifted ever back to his attentions.

_“I was in error to begin that project, even had you truly been an emissary of the Valar.”_

Annatar's eyes burned a rich yellow-gold, incredulity vaporizing to a trembling choler. Little wrinkles had formed around his frown, and Tyelpë had fought the urge to kiss them.

_“I don’t understand. Of all our works, the rings had the greatest potential preserve the world just as you so wish: to make it as beautiful as your ambition dare. Would you so easily give that up?”_

_“The philosophy was flawed, Anna.”_

He fumed, little sparks glowering in his hair along the curl that had fallen in front of his face over the side that had yet to fully heal. He loathed to see Annatar so overcome that he smoldered, knowing that his energy could be better spent to the healing of his wounds- smoothing the broken arc of a cheekbone and the livid rawness of burnt flesh to the softness of olive satin. Thinking back on it now, as Celebrimbor trailed his fingers over the rising water to make quiet splashes, he realized how exhausted the Maia probably was trying to restrain himself from whatever plan he originally swore himself to, instead turning that frustration back inwards to think upon it and puzzle its source. It was likely that the enduring physical ruin of his face only reflected the importance Annatar had placed to nurturing his Fëa foremost: a thought that made Tyelpë want to curl about him to keep him close.

_“Flawed?”_ Annatar grit those words through his teeth, and Tyelpë flinched at the memory of that sound, stilling his hand and mindlessly staring at the silver streams absorbing his wrist.

_“Flawed because they come too close to domination. If we are to love the earth and heal it of its hurts, we are to do so without overpowering it. We are to work with the earth in tandem rather than to bend and break it to our wills. Are we not meant rather as stewards than despots? One views the earth’s hurts with disdain and the other with hope, one labours onwards out of ill-content that things are not as he imagines, and the other with reverence that all things should be set aright, if we are but to help it along.”_

_“How else is one to heal a wound without manipulating it?”_

He smiled softly, sadly. Annatar’s lip curled around a snarl and he could see his struggle, sympathized with every tense line and furrow. How long had he fought against his own despair that the beautiful things in his mind might never come to be? How long had he obsessed over the flaws of his work, wishing that his hands might better translate his thoughts to matter? _‘To guide it,’_ he thought, sharing his reply between them, between the crackling silence. _’We are to guide it and to come to love its imperfections, those leftover scars: for nothing is perfect and to seek perfection is to doom oneself to further hurt.’_

Those words echoed between them such that the intimacy of their minds brushed against one another, making them shudder subtly. It seemed only to kindle Annatar to further fury, fanning the inferno.

_“Is it the weak will of the Valar that you now follow?”_ Annatar’s laugh was a haughty derision cloaking an almost rueful disbelief. _“Lack of ambition and inaction does not suit you, Celebrimbor.”_

_“I have never advocated for either of those things and I will neither speak for the Valar nor judge them.”_ He resisted the flare of his own anger at the Maia’s scorn, meeting it instead with vehemence that he should be made to understand. _“Let me ask you this, Annatar: would you and I be as we now are? Would we be as the left and right hand of a shared labour had you those rings before we met? Certainly! But would it be the same? Would it be just the same to you if you had forced yourself upon me and had I warred to keep you from my thoughts than as we are now, sharing them freely, intimately, with all the courage of that trust? Is it not our differences that have challenged us, that have brought us to solutions and designs we never would have found on our minds alone?”_

He took a deep breath, and tears filled his eyes- both at the memory of his words as he waited for the tub to fill and at the time he had spoken them. _“Would you rather me then as a slave than a mind free? Would you have me repeat only the thoughts that came to you and none of my own? Rather than my love would you have in its place an awful hatred?”_

Annatar had left quickly, his face a careful mask that chipped at the edges- quivering lips and overcast eyes. Even his hands had been shaking, balled in his robes until a faint smell of singed silk and streams of silent tears were all that was left for Tyelpë to ponder on. Everytime the Maia left him he had to fight to keep from following, from holding onto him and never letting go. But Celebrimbor was no lord of slaves, nor a prison warden: Annatar was free to go where he would, even back to Mordor should he so please, though that betrayal would be among the greatest hurts Tyelpë would ever endure. So he had stayed behind, sobbing softly even as he surrendered to the hopeful trust that the Maia would be back ere the day ended. He had no reason to doubt him yet: his Fairest had yet to flee since he had revealed himself only a month past, since they had both left Eregion.

_Revealed himself._ Tyelpë trembled, recalling that night he had caught Annatar before he had a chance to flee, recalling his overdue confession. He held the Maia’s exhausted Fána all throughout the night, rocking him, crying into his hair almost as if in a wailing for a loved one lost, as if the body he clutched to himself was dead. Celebrimbor’s thoughts wheeled around and around, conflicted between pushing him _-_ _(Annatar? Sauron? Which of those names?)-_ away and pulling him ever-closer as something precious. Everytime the horror would overwhelm him he would look down upon Annatar’s burned and broken face and remember how selflessly he had been saved from Mandos. Would Sauron have done such a thing? Would Sauron not have left rather than tell?

Unconsciously the Maia curled up against him, fearful that Celebrimbor should leave even in his fitful slumber. That image of him, knuckles white from their grasp on his loose gown, cheeks stained with many tear-trails and face twisted with such _grief_ had resolved something within Celebrimbor, solidifying the many rushing thoughts to a single determination. Calm replaced nausea, and his own tears dried on his cheeks to stain them in matching trails. Annatar had incredible faith enough to tell him, to believe that he had meant it fully when he promised acceptance no matter his past, when he had ensured that all who would work towards healing were welcome, when he had prized above all else a truthfulness. Could he destroy that trust with rejection, condemning the one that had become an inexorable part of himself to fall back under the Shadow, could he let Annatar contort his hurts to a more bearable malice?

He could not. Tyelpë needed, more than anything, to believe that what they had built was not doomed or hopeless. He knew that he would have to find the courage to trust Annatar back- the Maia had saved his life and he would ruin all that he had built to do the same. Not just for some debt would he place his trust but because _still he loved him, more than anything._

That night had been the longest in his life. Celebrimbor knew immediately that they could not stay in Ost-in-Edhil because he knew he could not keep his secret. Secrecy was something he had long renounced and he could not stay silent as the former slaves of Angband and refugees of Beleriand continued to work unknowingly with their tormentor: even if Annatar was no longer Gorthaur. He could not expect his people to feel the same as him despite his open-door policy, despite his law being in favor of rehabilitation rather than punishment. People would want blood for the hurts that still weighed heavy on their hearts but Celebrimbor would not suffer Annatar to be harmed, nor would he have him imprisoned- if even he could be.

He wept a second time the night of Annatar’s confession: not for Annatar’s past but for their past together in Eregion which seemed now too short a time. He resolved that the first thing he would do in the morning was destroy all of their work with the rings- for he perceived now the peril of that plan. The last thing he would do as Lord of Eregion that day would be to share this dreadful secret and then to depart with Annatar from the city that he had built from the ashes of all that he knew, to part from his family of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain and the Khazâd. The Council could take up governance in his stead. It could be no other way: for any other way would lead to war or the betrayal of everything that he had stood for. Any other way and he would be parted from Annatar forever and nothing made his heart despair more than the unbearable thought of his love surrendering to the malice of a previous age.

Even now, a month later, tears welled in his eyes at the thought of parting from him, the second half of all his works, all his happiest thoughts and grandest designs. Yet among those cold tears a sudden warm presence emerged, a faint shimmer of indirect sensation and a direct transmittance of thought and emotion. He blinked back the fog of his musings as a hand came into view to quickly turn off the water which nearly overflowed the tub. He would have cursed softly under his breath for losing himself but he was too relieved to see that Annatar had returned to care. Tyelpë jumped up, embracing him as tightly as he could, pulling him close- almost off his feet in his fervor- kissing the curve of his neck, the sweet angle of his jaw, anything and everything he could. It was with great joy and a deeper relief that the Maia held him back just as tightly.

They stood for long moments like this before Tyelpë stilled his kisses and Annatar’s voice rasped softly against his cheek:

“Do you wish that I had never told, that I could have just stayed as Annatar?”

Tyelpë wondered if he had unknowingly shared his winding thoughts, if he had felt a bit of his longing. “Do you?” he asked quietly, pulling away to look at red-rimmed eyes tired with the burden of his anger.

The Maia didn’t answer, looking away from his silver gaze at once gentle and piercing.

“Anna, look at me.”

Pale gold, veiled by a sheen as of fine mist.

“It was consuming you inside and it was heavy between us: I will never regret you telling me and I do not regret that you came to Ost-in-Edhil all those long years past, for the city is more beautiful in you having been there and for my part,” he murmured, pressing together their foreheads. “You have made me happier than ever I have known, more fulfilled, more _alive_ than ever I thought possible.” He moved to kiss his temple. “My treasure,” he whispered, kissing him with each word: “My fairest gift.”

Comfortable silence came upon them again, listening to the sounds of the wind on the cottage, the fireplace as it burned low, the sound of their breathing. Annatar pressed his face into his neck, calming himself as Tyelpë ran his fingers through his hair, humming quietly as he played with the locks. _‘Let me wash your hair,’_ he suggested through their Fëa-bond, motioning with an intangible thought-connection that he would need to move some of the water to begin to boil it over the fireplace. Annatar scoffed in protest of him pulling away, sticking his hand petulantly into the tub next to them without moving from his enveloping hug, his hand glowing red like a brand as it heated the water it submerged itself in.

Tyelpë gasped, then, sternly: “You shouldn’t spend yourself on such frivolities!” But the laugh that it elicited from the Maia was worth it, as was the smile that lit his swollen eyes, making them younger and less burdened. Already he was removing his cloak and belt.

“Why should I not when I know you will spoil me the rest of the night?”

_‘You enjoy too much my pampering,’_ Tyelpë thought to him later, when they were sitting under the water, the chamomile and lavender oil that Tyelpë had added earlier becoming fragrant with the heat. He sat behind him, massaging the soap into his hair and kissing the shoulder bared to him, nipping playfully at a small freckle. _‘And you love too much to pamper me,’_ was the reply.

Their laughter was quiet but genuine: Eregion had been a dream, but Celebrimbor held hope that it foretold a pleasant dawn, however rough the awakening.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been on my mind lately, ever since "When You Arise." What would Celebrimbor do after he found out that Annatar was Sauron? I do not envy him the feeling that must have overcome him with that reveal, it must have been awful. He has a lot of hard work ahead of him trying to get Annatar to change his views on power and order and what healing and good leadership looks like- but to Annatar's credit, he's trying.  
> Not much action happens but I felt like I needed to write a kind of explanation for some of the works I have planned later on with this AU :D I hope you still enjoyed the read.  
> ***


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